Dial feet on porcelain dial

[Charette]

Hi all - I purchased a pocket watch with a unitas 6497 off of ebay. The dial (see below) has the feet broken off. At some point someone made a purposeful repair to cut the one off and sand smooth.

Any suggestions on options to add back dial feet? I have options on the side where the porcelain is broken away, but I feel like breaking away porcelain on the 'good' side is not the best option.

Was thinking of using some 14ga copper wire to affix somehow.

Thanks for your time, hope all are well.

Paul.

[Klassiker]

Probably removed because the original feet didn't fit this movement. I would try bonding new feet in place. Removing more enamel is risky.

[watchweasol]

Hi. Check if the feet platings match this movement, if not they were as Klassiker said cut off so the dial fitted the watch. So before putting new ones on check.

[HectorLooi]

The dial appears to have been repaired before. The "VII" doesn't look original. Is it above one of the dial feet? Probably someone tried soldering a dial foot and damaged the enamel.

[JohnR725]

7 hours ago, Charette said:

I purchased a pocket watch with a unitas 6497 off of ebay.

as others are telling you that dial never came with this movement. For one thing the movement is supposed to have a small secondhand and that seems to be missing?

then interesting looking dial which of course is definitely porcelain. The original porcelain dials had the feet silver soldered on so they can withstand the enameling process. it looks like somebody basically tried to cut the old feed off for grind them off to fit them to the wrong movements.

then did this watch come with a case

 

 

[Charette]

Thanks all. I did think it a bit weird when looking that there was no sub-seconds but after some quick googling thought perhaps it was a special version of the 6497 perhaps, as Panerai often used this movement and had a no-seconds version. Looking at the seconds wheel I could not tell if it was stock with a short side, but may just mean it was lathed up to shorten it.

The no seconds did grow on me, but as you have noted, the positions of the feet don’t match up perfectly to fasten to the 6497. In my mind when I was purchasing I thought perhaps I would get a dial separately and a seconds hand to go back to sub seconds. Something to consider. There was some kind of old glue holding the dial on.

It did come cased.

The damage to the front of the dial is where the rough looking foot area is behind.

appreciate all of your replies. I’ll have to consider how I move forward. This is just going to be a desk watch for me.

 

[Charette]

It’s possible the watch was slightly Frankensteined to get it on eBay - the dial, noticed no case screws but just initially thought the case design held things solid, which it seemed to be - but then I found the case screws in the train wheel bridge, more for show really. Will have to find a couple screws plus a dial washer.

It’s an adventure.